Artworks1993Briar Egg

Egg shell painted to look like briar wood displayed in a wall mounted museum vitrine.

This sculpture is a blown egg, hand painted to appear as if it has been carved from briarwood – which comes from the root-ball of the briar bush and is traditionally used to make pipes. Wood grain is a common motif in so-called ‘trompe-l’oeil’ paintings, where the skill of the artist literally ‘fools the eye’ into believing that the flat depictions are in fact three-dimensional objects. Stone and wood eggs are popular contemplative ornaments (being elegant sculptural forms), while Turk is interested in the paradox of originality that the egg motif commonly stands for.